The prior art recognizes the desirability of providing foot-operated mechanisms for effecting flushing of urinals and other toilets. For example, Samaniego U.S. Pat. No. 4,847,924 discloses a toilet flushing mechanism comprised of a member that is disposed over the flush handle and is brought into engagement therewith by operation of a foot pedal.
The apparatus of Schneeweiss U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,931 includes a bracket assembly that is secured to the flush valve handle and is operatively connected to a foot lever, and in the arrangement described in Johnson et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,142,708, the flushing handle of a toilet is connected to a foot lever by a chain linkage.
These and other arrangements taught in the art typically suffer from one or more significant disadvantages. They are often unattractive, expensive, difficult to install, inconvenient to use, and subject to tampering, vandalism, or undue maintenance requirements.